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A wide choice of topics covered from the dawn of history right up to present days . Many of these have a wider relevance than purely within the context of Strathearn . The author's viewpoint often is at variance with the accepted opinions espoused elsewhere eg The Jacobite Uprisings and The Reformation .

Where is Cultoquhey ?

Many of
our Scottish place names pose problems not only for visitors but indeed
for native Scots ! When I was married
a long time ago I settled down in
the small town of Milngavie north of Glasgow . Milngavie is pronounced Mil- guy as Kirkcaldy is
pronounced Kirk- caw – di and our delightful Strathearn village of Muthill is
pronounced Mewth- ill !

The present Cultoquhey which is now an hotel

Now that brings me to the subject of this “ blog “ - Cultoquhey . This ancient place
name is pronounced Cul- to – whey ! Its
roots in the mists of time have resulted
in at least source two interpretations of its Gaelic source
. Coillte a' Che meaning ‘the woods of Ce’. Ce was one of the seven sons from whom the Pictish
race was said to descend and this seems eminently possible . During the 1930s,
Margaret Ethel Blair Oliphant wrote: "The
estate lies about three miles to the east of the town of Crieff at the gate of
the Highlands, between the Ochil and Grampian Hills. The name signifies in
Gaelic, "At the back of the snowdrift". I am afraid we will have
to accept that we do not know
for certainty the definition
of the name .

What is interesting
about Cultoquhey is that it was
in the same family , the Maxtones , for
over five hundred years having passed through the male line ,
generation after generation . Surrounded by larger land owners
, the Maxtones somehow managed
to cling onto their small estate
through fifteen generations . There
have been at least three houses at Cultoquhey. A "fortalice and
tower" is mentioned in a charter of 1545. Then the house pictured above was built (perhaps in the 17th century - a drawing of an old model cut out of
paper makes it look older than McOmie's drawing) and was occupied until 1830,
when it was pulled down on the foolish advice of Robert Graham of Redgorton,
"to get rid of all taxes". The present big house of Cultoquhey (now
an hotel) was built between 1822 and about 1830 on a nearby site. The Maxtone (
Maxtone Graham ) connection ended in 1955 when Cultoquhey was sold
by the 16th Laird .

In the 1790s
, the Parish of Fowlis Wester declared
the following annual rental values for the Estates located therein :

1.Moray of Abercairney : Abercairney
Estate : £ 3,026

2.Moncrief of Moncrieff : Gorthie
Estate : £ 1,598

3.Murrray of Ochtertyre : Fowlis Wester
: £1, 500

4.Smith , Lord Methven : Keillar :
£1,270

5.Drummond of Logie Almond : Logie :
£549

6.Maxton of Cultoquhey : Cultoquhey : £
362

7.Robertson of Lawers : -- : £118

8.Graeme of Inchbrakie : Pitnaclerach:
£82

One can see
from these figures that Abercairney was
, by far the largest of these estates
whilst Cultoquhey was
comparatively small .

Gilmerton Village

Where exactly is Cultoquhey ? It lies immediately
to the south of the main A 85 trunk road in the village of Gilmerton , three
miles to the east of Crieff . It is
currently an hotel specialising in hunting, shooting and fishing and owned by
an Italian consortium. Immediately to the south of the estate lies the small clachan / hamlet of Milton of
Cultoquhey where in days gone by there
existed a corn mill which can be looked at digitally on the National
Library of Scotland web site http://maps.nls.uk/view/75655733.

The present
house was built about 1820 for the then Laird , one Anthony Maxtone . It was
designed by the architect Robert Smirke and has
been described in critical circles as a “ competent butunexciting
Tudor manor house “ ! The house
it succeeded had obviously out grown its
original needs and was described in the book “ The Maxtones of Cultoquhey “ by E Maxtone Graham as follows :

"According to the only picture
that has been found, this was a small compact house with wings, to modern
ideas, far too small for the families that were reared within its walls; but
until recently the standards of comfort in Scotland were primitive ... The
household staff would be crowded into a couple of attics and the children packed
like sardines in small bedrooms at night ..."

In “ Historic Scenes of Perthshire “ by
William Marshall DD published in 1880 , we
find an interesting account of
the family : “ The present proprietor is
James Maxtone Graham of Cultoquhey and Redgorton . . His usual residence is
Battleby House, Redgorton .He assumed the name and arms of Graham on succeeding
to his uncle Robert Graham of Redgorton, cousin and heir of Lord Lynedoch. The
Maxtones are of Saxon extraction. Robert Maxtone fell at Flodden. Anthony
Maxtone was Prebendary of Durham in the reign of Charles 1. “

A quaint tradition is still quoted regarding Mungo
Maxtone, the 10th Laird.Every day he
climbed the hill which rises at the back of the house at Cultoquhey, from
whence he could see the surrounding estates. There, he offered up a litany for
protection from his neighbours, the lairds of Monzie, Drummond Castle, Balgowan
and Abercairney.

“Frae the
greed o' the Campbells,

Frae the ire
o' the Drummonds,

Frae the
pride o' the Grahams,

And frae the
wind o' the Murrays,

Good Lord
deliver us.”

The story is
told that the Duke of Athole, the chief of the Clan Murray, invited Cultoquhey
to dinner and in the course of the evening requested him to repeat his addition
to the litany , thinking he would not have the courage to do so in his presence . His Grace was
mistaken as he heard the words spout from the lips of the author. “Cultoquhey –
I will crop your arse if you ever again take such liberty with my name! “ The
cool reply came – “There my Lord, there’s the wind of the Murrays! “ On a further
occasion Cultoquhey was visited by a gentleman by the name of Murray and remonstrated
with him for so scandalising his Clan. The Laird said not a word to the remonstrant
but calling his servant quietly ordered him “to open that door and let out the wind
of the Murrays!

Let me move
on to the present and conclude this Blog . Those of you who peruse the ever
bourgeoning Sunday supplements will, no doubt have stumbled across a very
literate journalist who goes by the somewhat unusual forename or Christian name
of Ysenda.

Ysenda
Maxtone Graham was born in 1962 and educated at The King’s School, Canterbury
and Girton College, Cambridge. She has written widely for many newspapers and
magazines, as features writer, book reviewer and columnist. She is the author
of The Church Hesitant: A Portrait of the Church of England (published by
Hodder & Stoughton); The Real Mrs Miniver (published by John Murray) which
was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography of the Year Award, 2002, and Mr
Tibbits’s Catholic School, published by Slightly Foxed Editions in 2011,
described by Rupert Christiansen as ‘a small but perfectly formed masterpiece’.
This book sold out so quickly in its limited-edition hardback that it came out
six week later as the first-ever Slightly Foxed paperback. She was a judge of
the Whitbread Awards in 2003.She lives in London with her husband Michael and
their three sons Toby, Charles and Francis.

The Maxtone
Graham surname perhaps gives a you a clue that Ysenda is from that well known and
ancient line of Maxtone Grahams whose presence at Cultoquhey spanned many
centuries in Strathearn. The forename of this eminent member of the Clan can be
found lurking again in the Charters of that so neglected abbey :

Ysenda, spouse of Earl Gilbert of
Strathearn, by consent of the earl her lord, has given, granted, and
established by her charter, to Inchaffray Abbey, five acres of land in her
villa of Abercairney (PER), namely, that land which she perambulated in the
presence of Sir Richard the knight and Geoffrey of Gask, her brothers, Henry
and Tristram, sons of Tristram, William the earl’s clerk, and many others, in
perpetual alms, free and quit from all service and secular exaction, with
common pasture for 12 cows and two horses, and with all other easements pertaining
to the same territory. Because she does not have her own seal, the seal of
Bishop Abraham of Dunblane has been attached.

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